第21章

One of the project members near me cried out as a symbol briefly flared on his arm, leaving a red, burning mark.

“It’s attacking us!” someone screamed.

Fear threatened to overwhelm me again. But I pushed it down. I had to stay focused. This wasn't some supernatural ghost, this was code gone wild!

I typed another command, a network diagnostic tool I was familiar with. The symbols on the screen seemed to recoil for a moment, then surged back with renewed intensity. I was met with a firewall, a protection system.

This digital entity was intelligent. It was reacting to my attempts to analyze it.

But that was also a clue. If it had a firewall, it was a structured system. And every system had vulnerabilities.

I started trying common network attack vectors, like SQL injection, buffer overflows, port scanning, anything I could think of from my cybersecurity studies. The digital entity fought back, throwing more chaotic data and terrifying projections at me. The black tower sometimes seemed to expand, threatening to engulf the entire room. And sometimes, fleeting images would flash within the tower, distorted faces, screaming figures, scenes of digital chaos.